


Rowan Tree

by peevee



Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Action/Adventure, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, mild injury description
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:48:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27897823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peevee/pseuds/peevee
Summary: Despite the dark, and the whirling wet snow, and the freezing chill of the wind, Tenzing felt an unexpected thrill of excitement begin to simmer in his blood, not quite quenched by the shame that followed.
Relationships: William Laurence/Tenzing Tharkay
Comments: 28
Kudos: 99
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Rowan Tree

**Author's Note:**

  * For [queen_ypolita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_ypolita/gifts).



> Happy happy yuletide, queen_ypolita! I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it, and wishing you a very merry yule. 
> 
> Endless gratitude to Kate for the beta <3
> 
> A note, re - the title. There’s a lot of interesting folklore connected to rowan trees, concerning their protective qualities in the warding off of witches and fairies and other malevolent spirits, but they are also known as the ‘wayfarers tree’ or the ‘travellers tree’ and supposedly prevent those on a journey from getting lost.

It was late November, and there was a storm brewing. It was not at all out of the ordinary for the season, but Tenzing had at breakfast received word that Laurence and Temeraire were to be returning to Dalmore that very evening. The hastily scribbled note had arrived by courier as he was taking his tea, and the sky above had been a clear, cloudless blue. Now it was early afternoon, and the air had a gravid, dark weight to it.

Tenzing gripped a glass of spiced wine between his fingers and stood at the window, watching as snow began to whip up in delicate flurries against the glass, the wind thrashing this way and that and making the windows rattle in their panes. Behind him, the drawing room fire crackled warmly, but Tenzing could only think of Laurence and Temeraire making their way through that huge dark sky, alone except for one another. 

He was foolish to worry, of course; the two of them had faced far fiercer storms in far harsher climes; that Russian winter that had frozen their breath into their beards and eyelashes as they slept, and the monstrous cyclones that ravaged the wild oceans of the far south. In comparison, this could barely be called a strong breeze, but still Tenzing paced at the window and supped at his wine and hoped against hope to see a dark shape approaching from the south.

Instead, the afternoon darkened and the snow fell ever faster only to melt as soon as it reached the ground, and though it was barely three o’ clock Tenzing was forced to call for the lamps to be lit so that he could read, though it could barely be called reading to stare unseeing at the page, letters swimming in front of his eyes. He slammed the book down and drained his wine. He was being ridiculous, letting sentimentality overtake good sense. Laurence was no fool, and if he thought there to be any great danger he would overnight at one of the coverts that dotted the North Sea coastline. 

His hands had begun to ache earlier that day as if a portent of gloom, and he called for his valet to fetch a pot of salve from the medicine cabinet so that he might distract himself. 

Ogilvy slipped through the door a few minutes later. 

“Sir,” he said, setting the salve down on the lamp table. “Would you have me assist you?”

Tenzing felt only a brief flare of wounded pride before acquiescing. As a younger man he would have borne the pain and said nothing at all, but here in his own drawing room, in the home that was rightfully his, he allowed himself some small weaknesses. He gritted his teeth as Ogilvy began to firmly massage the oily stuff into his skin, pressing and rubbing at each finger until the joints were loosened. 

Ogilvy was working on a thumb when there came through the walls the sound of a frantic pounding upon the door. Tenzing stood sharply, his body flooding with sudden nerves. The little pot of salve clattered to the floor, and Ogilvy scooped it up with an apology. 

Moments later, there was a sharp rap on the door of the drawing room, and Tenzing strode forward to pull it open. Behind it stood his butler, Finlayson, and behind _him_ , a bedraggled boy of eleven or twelve years, quite blue with cold. His eyes were bright with tears, and his clothing was soaked through.

“Mr. Tharkay, sir,” said Finlayson breathlessly, “It is -”

“Young Master Galbraith,” Tenzing said. “Good lord, boy. What in heaven has brought you here on such a day?”

The Galbraiths lived almost five miles away, their large estate bordering Tenzing’s to the west. Lord Galbraith had made no secret of his distaste for his unconventional neighbours, and Tenzing had never spoken to the boy. He had, however, seen his wide, enchanted eyes when he had gazed upon Temeraire, to his father’s glares and chastisement.

“S-sir,” the boy began, a violent shiver overtaking him. “I-I. My f-father -”

“Allow me to fetch some blankets, sir,” said Ogilvy. “Finlayson. Some brandy?”

“Hot,” said Tenzing, “with honey. Come,” he beckoned to the boy. “The fire is hot. We will soon have you warm and dry.”

The boy trailed nervously towards the fire and perched on the edge of Laurence’s usual chair.

“Sir,” he began again, visibly stilling himself to stop the stuttering. “My father, he- he-.”

Tenzing did not speak, but inclined his head, encouraging the boy to continue.

“We were hawking,” said the boy, his eyes gleaming wet, “up on the hill, above the rock gully. I… we were not expecting the storm, and it got dark so quickly. Father slipped. I think his leg is broken, and he hit his head quite badly. There was so much blood, and… I didn’t know what to do. I tried to carry him, but he was so heavy. Please, Mr. Tharkay. Can you help him?”

“Can you describe where he is?” said Tenzing. He flexed his hands, rising from his seat again.

“I… I think so,” said the boy, sniffing. “We were not far from the burn, on the track that leads up to the high hills. There is a large rock, with a tree growing quite freely from the top of it.”

“I believe I know the place,” said Tenzing grimly. It was almost an hour away on foot. He would have to hurry, were the man not to freeze before help could reach him. 

Ogilvy had returned with blankets, Finlayson in his wake with the steaming brandy and a plate of oat cakes and cheese.

“Ogilvy, my fur boots and coat, please.”

“ _Sir_ \- !”

“Finlayson,” said Tenzing, ignoring his valet, “you will need to call on Doctor Chisholm, and quickly.”

“Sir,” said Finlayson, already turning to leave. Ogilvy hovered for a moment more, but kept his protesting to himself and followed. 

Tenzing approached the wide cabinet that housed his slowly growing collection of maps. He beckoned the boy over and pulled out the lowest drawer. 

“Can you understand this?”

Young Galbraith nodded, his face beginning to gain a little more colour. He traced a shaking finger over the map, following the path of the river back toward the source. He paused at a crooked bend, where the cartographer had indicated that a copse of silver birch trees grew on the steep side of a gully. 

“There,” he said, voice wobbling. Tenzing smoothed his finger over the soft paper. “Mr. Tharkay, sir. Cannot… I had thought that you could ask your dragon -?”

“I am sorry to say that he is not yet returned from London,” said Tenzing, feeling his mouth flatten. As if in answer to his unspoken worry, the windows rattled violently in their frames. He focussed his gaze upon the map and attempted to turn his thoughts from the skies above to the solid ground.

Ogilvy returned shortly with his fur-lined boots and his greatcoat, and Tenzing pulled them on in a haste. The boy had begun to be wracked by full-body shivers; a good sign, Tenzing knew. The danger was when a person was cold and still. 

“Check his fingertips and his toes,” he instructed, as he laced his boots, his hands still aching. “You must inform Doctor Chisholm immediately if he has lost feeling in any of them, or if they are a colour other than pink.”

“Sir, you cannot mean to go alone?”

“I will be faster alone, and I will need to reach him quickly,” said Tenzing. “You may follow once Finlayson has returned.” He beckoned Ogilvy and indicated his destination on the map, regretting for the first time that he did not keep a larger household. Temeraire had often remarked upon it, his disappointment at Tenzing’s plain tastes palpable. Perhaps he would take on a lad or two in the spring.

Ogilvy fussed a little more, but he could not argue with plain sense. Instead he disappeared, only to return with a battered storm lamp, hastily dusted. One of the glass panes was cracked, and the door was stiff with rust, but the oil well was intact, and the flame was strong and bright. 

As Tenzing stepped out into the howling gale that thrashed against the house, he could not help himself glancing skyward. Of course, no great dark shape resolved itself against the heaving cloud, no pale figure atop it waving a greeting. He tugged his fur-lined hat down over his ears and went briskly to the sheds to retrieve a rough blanket, a loop of rope, a handful of strong iron shackles, and, after a moment’s consideration, a short length of wooden batten. He stuffed them into a faded knapsack that hung from a hook on the wall; it was dusty with disuse and several large spiders scattered as he shook it out onto the floor. 

Despite the dark, and the whirling wet snow, and the freezing chill of the wind, Tenzing felt an unexpected thrill of excitement begin to simmer in his blood, not quite quenched by the shame that followed. Solitary, with just his wits to rely on; it was how he had always existed, before Laurence, before Temeraire. He was no longer a wanderer, but the feeling of being alone against a harsh world was as familiar as it was buried bone-deep. He shouldered the knapsack and lifted the lantern, and stepped out into the storm. 

He moved quickly despite the sombre light that barely illuminated the looming mountains around him. There was a deer-track that roughly followed the river, and he made haste along it, scanning the sodden hillsides for signs of movement. Mercifully, the ground was not yet cold enough to sustain the fat snowflakes that dropped upon it, and they disappeared almost as soon as they touched the muddy trail in front of him. He hoped that Galbraith had enough sense to stay near to the paths if he was indeed able to move. 

Tenzing wished, suddenly, and with a sharp fierceness, for the warm presence of Laurence beside him. Only a moment ago he had felt that old familiar thrill of solitude, and yet now that he was truly alone, he might have given anything to have Laurence at his back, his steady unfailing companionship. How easy things seemed with Laurence at his side, with Temeraire’s huge, comforting presence. How he missed them, when they were gone. Tenzing hunched his shoulders and pushed the pair of them out of his mind, attempting to focus on the steady tread of his own footsteps, the only thing he could hear above the howling of the wind around him. 

After perhaps another half hour, he suddenly recognised the shape of that large, distinctive boulder that young Galbraith had described. There, sprouting defiantly from the very top of it, was a young rowan tree, its roots taken hold in whatever scant earth there was to be found in the cracked rock. It was lashed this way and that by the wind, its branches bowing, and behind it, Tenzing could see the dark-shadowed slash of the rock gully, the pale trunks of the birches like slender ghosts in the gloom.

“Halloo!” he called, cupping one gloved hand around his mouth, but the wind and the rush of the swollen river stole his shout, and he hastened forward instead, searching against the dark for any sign of movement. He called out again, this time hearing his shout echoed back at him from the mouth of the gully.

“ _Hoy, hallo_!” came a muffled cry from somewhere above. Tenzing scrambled upwards, stepping over rough stone with one step and sinking into wet bog with the next. He raised his lantern higher as he moved, and finally he spotted the pale, stricken shape of Galbraith huddled into a small rock hollow, though it was not providing him with any real measure of shelter.

The man’s face was streaked with a reddish brown mixture of blood and mud, and Tenzing saw that he was holding himself in position with one leg, the other set at an odd angle upon the rock. He flexed his aching hands and pulled himself up the last short section of rock to kneel beside Galbraith and remove his knapsack. 

“Tharkay? Is that you, man?” croaked Galbraith. Tenzing held the lantern up to let it illuminate his face. 

“Your boy arrived on my doorstep,” he said, pulling the blanket out and setting it about Galbraith’s shoulders.

“He… he is unharmed?”

“Cold, but otherwise in fine health. Chisholm will be attending to him at this very moment.”

“Oh, thank the Lord.” Galbraith’s shoulders drooped, and his head lolled a little. Tenzing drew the lamp a little closer, and saw that his pupils were large and that they were not reacting to the light. He took his mittens off, then reached out and felt gently over Galbraith’s head, searching for damage. 

“Where’s that beast of yours then, eh? Stuart said… he said he would-” Galbraith struggled briefly for words, then seemed to give up. Tenzing’s fingers found a clump of sticky hair, matted down by thick blood, but the wound seemed to be only to his scalp - no damage evident to the bone underneath. Likely the man was badly concussed, but the injury was not grave. 

“He is very unfortunately in London on business,” said Tenzing, raising Galbraith up a little more. Galbraith followed him easily, his eyes darting this way and that, not focussing on anything.

“Pshaw!” he slurred. “A dragon, on _business_. What rot.”

Tenzing ignored him to dig within his greatcoat for his silver pocket flask. 

“Here,” he said, “take a little of this.”

Galbraith swallowed a mouthful of whisky obediently, coughing, and Tenzing set to investigating his leg. Raising the lantern revealed a dark, gleaming stain spreading on the fabric of Galbraith’s breeches, just where they buttoned at the knee. An ill sign. A broken leg alone might not be so severe, but Tenzing had seen breaks where sharp bone had cut deep enough to leave a man bleeding out.

“Try not to move,” said Tenzing. He reached back into his knapsack and retrieved the wooden batten and the length of rope, as well as his well-used pocket knife. It glittered as it caught the lamplight. He sliced through the wool of the breeches and the sodden stocking in one swift movement and peeled them aside to better reveal the injury. It was not so grave as he might have feared. The break looked clean, and blood welled sluggishly from the wound but did not gush; there was no doubt, though, that it would need to be bound were they to descend. Tenzing passed Galbraith the knapsack by one leather strap.

“Bite down on this,” he said. “It will be over in a moment.”

Galbraith paled but nodded, using one shaky hand to lodge the strap between his teeth. Tenzing watched him closely, and when Galbraith nodded, he moved all at once and straightened the leg, bringing it onto the batten. Galbraith groaned and panted but did not move, and when Tenzing passed him the whisky again he dropped the knapsack and took a large swallow.

“Can you stand?” said Tenzing. He finished knotting the rope around the batten and tugged it lightly to test it, careful not to jolt it. 

“Give me a moment, man!”

“A moment,” said Tenzing. “Very well.”

He watched as Galbraith took a few deep breaths, then drained the rest of the whisky. The wet snow lashed down ever thicker, and the lantern flickered and spluttered as the wind caught at the flame through the cracks in the glass. Tenzing’s hands were numb with cold, and he tugged his mittens back over his frigid fingers before offering his hands to Galbraith, who grabbed onto him with a surprising burst of strength and began to haul himself up. 

It was not easy going. Tenzing shook with cold and fatigue, and Galbraith was a sodden weight upon his shoulder, only just able to support himself enough to take each step. It had taken him a little less than an hour to reach the gully, but now they stumbled and slipped together on the wet rock, pausing every few minutes for Galbraith to sag and pant against him. Tenzing could only hope that Ogilvy had set out after him; he was not entirely certain his own legs would not give out before they could reach Dalmore. 

They staggered forward together in a grim silence, broken only by Galbraith’s harsh breaths, their progress achingly slow, and as the icy wind lashed at them, Tenzing wished more than ever for Laurence, for Temeraire. He wished for them so fervently that he could almost hear Temeraire’s voice on the wind, calling for him. 

He shook his head to clear it and ploughed forwards, staggering a little as Galbraith drooped against him. 

“Tharkay,” he rasped, “have mercy. Let me rest.”

“We are very near,” lied Tenzing. “Come, just a few more steps.”

Galbraith heaved himself forward, his head beginning to loll listlessly to one side. Again, Tenzing heard the wind make a mocking echo of Temeraire’s voice calling to him, and he shut his eyes and breathed deeply, cursing at his own foolish hubris. He was too weak for this, too soft, and they would both pay for it. His hands did not have the strength to catch Galbraith as he slid down into a tussock of wet heather beside the deer track, and in the trying, the lantern was tipped onto the wet ground and extinguished.

“You must not stop,” Tenzing urged desperately. “We must continue.”

Galbraith made no reply, and it was with despair that Tenzing saw that he had lost consciousness. For a moment, all he could do was stand and stare up into the endless dark sky. Snow landed on his cheeks and melted, and he could hear only the rushing of the water in the river that flowed beside them and the pounding of his own feeble heart.

“Tharkay!”

He almost laughed aloud. In the new quiet, it was no apparition on the wind that he heard. It was a voice, clear and ever louder, approaching at speed.

“Ho, halloo, Tharkay!”

A huge, dark shape swam into Tenzing’s vision, his blue-black scales slick with rain. Temeraire landed lightly beside them and folded his wings, his tail lashing fretfully. Tenzing’s eyes were drawn not to the dragon himself, but to the small shape atop his back; the man that was already scrambling gracelessly down, leaping into the mud and striding towards him.

“Tenzing,” said Laurence, and his face was a mask of some emotion that Tenzing could not name. He said nothing, but Laurence grasped his shoulders, then pulled him into an embrace that seemed to envelop him in warmth from his toes to the tips of his frozen fingers. 

“Oh!” said Temeraire, from above them. “I did not know it would be _him_.”

Laurence pulled away, leaving Tenzing cold to his bones. 

“Come now, my dear,” he said to Temeraire. “We are on a rescue mission, it would not do to return empty-handed.”

“We can rescue Tharkay,” said Temeraire mulishly. “ _He_ is not an ill-mannered boor.”

“The rescuer becomes the rescued,” said Tharkay, wry. “What indignity.”

The relief that had begun to flood through him was almost ecstatic. Temeraire begrudgingly scooped Galbraith up in one enormous claw and crouched low to the ground to allow Laurence and Tenzing to climb onto his back. He wore only a simple harness, atop it a low shelter with barely enough room for one man. Laurence ushered him inside it and clipped himself on. 

“You made the only decision you could,” said Laurence. 

“Mm,” said Tenzing. “Overly confident. Rash.”

“Fearless,” Laurence countered.

“ _Foolish_ ,” said Tenzing, but he could not help his smile at Laurence’s stubborn regard, the firm set of his chin. There was a familiar dropping sensation in his belly as Temeraire leaped into the air, and it was barely a quarter hour before they were landing on the grass of Dalmore’s well-kept lawn, Ogilvy hurrying to meet them with a lantern held above his head.

Galbraith was quickly transferred onto a pallet, Temeraire showing a surprising delicacy with the man who had once called him an _overgrown snake_ in polite company. A quiet flurry of activity saw him hoisted and transferred to a guest room, whereupon Galbraith the Younger could not be persuaded to leave his side, and eventually the good doctor simply sighed and opened his bag. 

Ogilvy and Laurence were conspiring together, it seemed, as they ushered Tenzing to the drawing room and fussed at him in tandem, Ogilvy gathering his coat and Laurence crouching to remove his boots. He might have protested, were his hands not so stiff that he could barely move his fingers. As it was, he bore yet another indignity, staring into the licking flames so that he would not have to watch Laurence kneeling at his feet. 

“Tenzing,” murmured Laurence, once Ogilvy had gone to fetch some hot wine and a plate for their supper. 

“Will,” he parroted back, a little mocking, but when he turned and met Laurence’s eyes, the sincerity in them dissolved even that flimsy barrier. Laurence always had been able to make him crumble with a simple look. 

“For a moment, I feared we would not find you. That Temeraire and I were too late.”

“I -”

“I feared that I had let you down dreadfully. Have not you always appeared in the time of our greatest need, at the very moment we have thought all hope to be lost?”

Laurence finished unlacing the first boot, and drew it gently from Tenzing’s foot.

“I am not sure I have ever made it known, Tenzing, how unbearable I would find it, to be without you.” 

He was looking down as he said this, fingers clumsy on the laces of Tenzing’s second boot, but he glanced upwards and their eyes met with a shock that was almost physical. Tenzing’s tongue felt thick in his mouth, but just as he opened his mouth there was a light knock on the door, and Ogilvy set down two cups of steaming wine and a plate with slices of thickly buttered bread.

“I… thank you,” said Tenzing, feeling like a hapless clod, barely seeing Ogilvy as he picked up the discarded boots and left them alone. Laurence’s eyes were so very blue. He was still kneeling by Tenzing’s feet, and, slowly, he reached forward to grasp one of Tenzing’s gloved hands. It was with such aching gentleness that he removed the glove, cradling Tenzing’s painful hand in his own. Then he held them between his and leaned down to blow softly into the cup of their joined fingers. 

“I remember my mother doing this,” said Tenzing, unthinking. “When I was very young, and wont to escape her clutches and climb in the ice with no gloves, nor a cloak upon my back.”

“Do you remember her well?” said Laurence. His breath was warm as he spoke.

Tenzing closed his eyes briefly as he thought of her. Her smooth brown face, her long dark hair in intricate coils atop her head. 

“I came to England at four with my father. I have not seen her since.”

Laurence stilled his breath and drew Tenzing’s hands toward him. 

“I am sorry,” he said. Then he brought his lips to Tenzing’s fingers and released them into his lap. 

“Will,” said Tenzing, a little desperately. “Would you -?”

He reached out to grasp at Laurence’s shoulder with a clumsiness that was ill-befitting of a man of five and forty, but Laurence reached for him with a matching ungraceful eagerness, raising himself up until they were at a level to press their mouths together. 

The kiss was a brief, chaste thing. Barely a moment of contact before Laurence was drawing back to settle into his chair. Tenzing could have almost been convinced that he had imagined it, were it not for the way that Laurence was still looking at him, his gaze so heavy it was like a touch. He reached for his wine with shaking fingers and almost scalded his mouth with a too-large swallow. His heart thumped in his breast. 

“I had hoped -” he managed roughly. “Will, you must know how… fervently I admire you.”

“Yes,” said Laurence. “Yes. I hope you can forgive the cowardice of a fool. I will not make the same mistake again.”

“There is nothing to forgive. Nothing.”

Laurence’s eyes tracked over his face, and what he saw there seemed to satisfy him, for his shoulders lost some of their tightness and he let out a short breath. 

“I cannot lose you,” he said. “When I thought… earlier today, it was for scarcely a moment, but -”

Tenzing leaned forward and placed a hand upon his knee to quiet him. “I have been most thoroughly rescued; and from my own folly, no less.”

“I maintain my own faith in your bravery. As does Temeraire.”

“He is well? I… apologies, I have been remiss. I have not asked after your visit to London at all.”

“Oh, he continues to squash the objections of his opponents by simply being several hundred times the size of them.”

“Not literally, I hope?”

“Not yet, but I fear for a few of the less couthsome of them.”

“Well. A few squashed politicians may do the country some good.”

Laurence smiled, then, and it was as though the sun had suddenly risen and cast its golden rays upon his face. Tenzing hid his own smile in his cup, and with the flames crackling and the wine hot in his belly, he felt warm to his very toes.


End file.
